November 2018 e-Report

President's Pen

PRINZ is reviewing its governance – the
way our members direct the things we do. We think it needs modernising to be
more up to date, and want your ideas on how that should go.

Most of us are happy to turn up to PRINZ
conferences or regional events and benefit from gaining the APR qualification,
being mentored, entering awards, and learning from continuing professional
development courses. But did you know that, behind the scenes, supporting our
very capable national office, there is a team of volunteers beavering away to
make PRINZ a success?

Some of those volunteers are on the
National Council. A few of us are elected, but most gain office by representing
the regions. For the past year, National Council has had to question how we
operate – it’s clear we need to modernise the way we are “governed” and find a
structure that’s as relevant and best-practice as we have to be in our day-to-day
advisory roles.

We need to have a governing body of people
with diverse skills and experience who have the time to give PRINZ and our
communications professionals the mana and understanding we should have in the
business world, and who have the commitment to set the scene for stronger
member support, continuing professional development offerings and events.

But we won’t change a thing without you,
our members, supporting a change, and we won’t make any changes until you’ve
had a say in how you think PRINZ should be governed. We’ve got some ideas for
how PRINZ could be better governed by its members, but we need your opinion and
suggestions.

A short survey will come into your inbox
soon – please spend a few moments to complete it and show your support for all
the volunteers who’ve given up their time to study and discuss modernising our
governance and who need to know the membership cares.

This is your opportunity for you to have
your say in how PRINZ is governed.

Chief Executive's Report

Our most recent Research First PRINZ Insights Survey
focuses on remuneration with two insights reports – one for in-house
professionals and one for those who work in a PR agency. The reports examine
salary and non-monetary benefits as well as charge out rates and required
billable hours for PR professionals at various experience and competency
levels. Read the latest Research First PRINZ Insights Survey on remuneration here.

It’s disheartening to see that in an industry that
has a gender skew approximately 75% female that women are still
underrepresented in the top salary bracket for in-house roles. If you look at
how respondents described their roles, content creation was the most common
task for women while the most common task for men was reputation
management. Our role as PR professionals is to build and sustain the
relationships organisations need to keep their licence to operate, and
reputation management is a key part of this strategic work. If PR is just
equated to content creation we are limiting the value that we bring to our
organisations and clients and this more
task-oriented work will be reflected in
lower salaries.

Attracting and retaining top talent is a challenge
for many organisations – especially as budgets remain extremely tight. However
non-monetary benefits such as professional development or flexible working
hours can make a role more attractive to candidates. For all of us working in
the industry, investing in our own professional development is critical if we
want to ensure our knowledge and capabilities are current and relevant. And if
we can demonstrate the value of our work to our organisations and clients then
we are better placed to ask for a salary increase.

On the subject of professional development, 2019
kicks off with PR Summer Camp in Auckland
and Wellington.
Two days of hands-on professional development, covering news writing, media
relations, social media and online engagement, mobile video basics, reputation
management, communication measurement and reporting results. The complete 2019
CPD calendar will be online shortly.

SAVE THE DATE! We are excited to announce that the
2019 PRINZ Annual Conference ‘Changing Mindsets’ will be hosted at Te Papa in
Wellington on the 25 and 26 July – save the dates to your calendar now. And book your ticket to #PRConf19 now at the lowest
super earlybird price available. Programme details will be released early 2019.

The 45th PRINZ Awards Gala Dinner will be held on
Thursday 25 July 2019 in Parliament’s Banquet Hall. Entries for the 45th PRINZ
Awards will open in February 2019. Stand by for category information and entry
details.